This invention relates in general to the slicing of semiconductor material ingots into wafers. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing localized heating to the adhesive joint between a mounting block and semiconductor material ingot thereby providing a relatively fast heating of the adhesive joint and resultant demounting of the semiconductor material ingot from the mounting block.
As part of the process of slicing a semiconductor material ingot into wafers for further processing, the semiconductor material ingot is ordinarily attached to a mounting block which is used to guide the ingot into the cutting area of a slicing machine. Once the slicing has been completed, or in some cases before the slicing has been started, the adhesive joint which is used to attach the ingot to the mounting block must be broken in order to prepare the mounting block for attachment of a new semiconductor material ingot. This demounting of the residual ingot is ordinarily accomplished by heating the entire mounting block/ingot combination on a hot plate thereby raising the temperature of the adhesive joint to the point at which the joint fails.
Since the entire mounting/ingot combination is being heated this process ordinarily consumes a relatively long time for both the heating and the cooling of the mounting block which must be accomplished prior to the mounting of a new ingot. In some cases this mounting block/ingot joint must be broken even before the slicing has been accomplished which requires that the entire mounting block/ingot combination be moved thereby increasing the risk of damage to the ingot.